Sino-Soviet Border War
The '''Sino-Soviet Border War '''was a brief but brutal war fought between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union. It erupted in August 1990 as a consequence of Chinese Pacific aggression and ended in April 1991 as a result of the '91 Disaster. Origins The cause of the war can be traced back to the dramatic change in Chinese foreign policy following the Taiwan Straits War and the the US Coup. China began throwing its military and political weight around mainly against the Soviet allies of Vietnam and Indonesia and this led to several skirmishes and conflicts. In early 1990 the Chinese discovered that the Soviet Union had been providing "advisers" to fly Indonesian combat aircraft (particularly the Yakovlev Yak-38 VTOL fighter) and warships against the Chinese in the Pacific leading to Sino-Soviet relations turning very sour. Soviet Counter-Aggression By July 1990 Soviet warships began escorting Vietnamese and Indonesian shipping to protect them from the Chinese. This resulted in small skirmishes between Soviet and Chinese forces but both sides tried to play them down for fear of escalation. Behind closed doors however plans were being drawn up for just that scenario. In June 1990 the almost exhausted United Nations was faced with a barrage of questions from the Soviet ambassador about the international community's response to Chinese aggression. China responded by reinforcing its border with the Soviet Union. The Soviet leadership viewed this as aggression and instigated the contingency plans it had established as the situation first started to deteriorate. When the Chinese closed the entire Sino-Soviet border on July 30th 1990 the Soviets expected that the next phase was open hostilities. They therefore ordered punitive sir strikes by the Soviet air force against Chinese border positions beginning on August 2nd 1990. The war had begun. The Opening Rounds The Soviet air strikes targeted positions along the border with the aim of destroying Chinese defences should the fighting escalate in to a full scale war. The attacking aircraft were met by a wall of surface-to-air defences that inflicted a heavy toll on the Soviet air force. For their part the Chinese retaliated by firing ballistic missiles armed with conventional warheads at the air bases from which the air strikes were being launched. The missiles proved woefully inadequate many of them landing several miles away from their target. This prompted the use of the Shenyang H7A1, a clone of the Dassault Mirage IV that had proven so effective against the Vietnamese in 1987. On August 7th a force of twenty aircraft penetrated Soviet air force without a fighter escort (although each aircraft was armed with short range infra-red AAMs for self defence). Flying in at low level they encountered very heavy ground and air defences resulting in half the force being destroyed before reaching their targets. Seven aircraft made it to the Soviet air bases where three more were downed. Of the entire force launched only four aircraft released their weapons on their targets. Another aircraft was lost on the return home. Of the twenty aircraft employed only three made it back. The Ground War The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) sustained heavy casualties from the air strikes in the first few days but these losses were rapidly made up as the PLA threw its immense weight behind reinforcing the border should the Soviets try to cross. The Battle of Bonzya In the end however it was decided that the reinforcements should actually make the first move of the ground war since the Chinese could not rely on their air and rocket forces to defeat the Soviets. On August 6th over 100 tanks supported by artillery, infantry and up to 200 aircraft crossed the border seventeen miles east of Bonzya. The PLA Air Force (PLAAF) harassed Soviet ground forces for the better part of four hours before they were beaten back by Soviet fighter aircraft who attained local air superiority. On the ground Chinese and Soviet tanks battled hard producing casualty figures on both sides more akin to World War II. In the end Soviet air power beat back the Chinese who conducted a fighting retreat back across the border. Category:Conflicts Category:The '91 Disaster